Ben Cline still doesn’t have any town halls on his schedule, because he doesn’t want to have to face hundreds of his Sixth District constituents angry about his support for cuts to Medicaid and Social Security, and angry about his throaty support for mass deportations of a relative few criminals and lots of innocent people because they happen to be the wrong skin color.
ICYMI
I’ll give Cline the ounce of credit he deserves here for meeting last week with members of the Harrisonburg School Board to discuss his support for closing down the Department of Education.
Our MAGA congressman can’t deal with hundreds of people giving him hell, but two school board members and an intern, that’s in the comfort zone.
“I very much appreciate Congressman Cline taking the meeting with us. He’s our representative, and it’s important that he listens to our concerns. It’s often not an easy or particularly comfortable thing to sit down with someone who holds views that are vastly different from your own. As an elected official, it’s a thing we have to do,” said Emma Phillips, the chair of the Harrisonburg School Board, in an email exchange with me on the meeting, which was also attended by the board’s vice chair, Tim Howley, and Mattie Waller, the board’s legislative intern.
To his credit on this, Cline would have known going in that he was going to hear it from the school board folks.
The Harrisonburg School Board voted on March 4 to endorse a resolution raising concerns about the consequences of eliminating the Department of Education, particularly the impact on federally funded programs that support students in local schools.
ICYMI
- Trump signs executive order pretending to shut down Department of Education
- Federal judge temporarily prevents DOE’s removal of fed funding if DEI remains
- Ben Cline remains silent on massive job cuts at Department of Education
Phillips told me that the board is particularly worried about worried about “the unintended consequences for students if federal support were to disappear without a clear replacement plan.”
“In a community like Harrisonburg, Title I and Title III funding is really important. Title I helps close opportunity gaps for children living in poverty, and Title III funds support English Language Learners and immigrants,” Phillips said. “We rely on those Title funds and IDEA funds to meet the varied needs of our student population. I’d like to believe that we would still have access to that funding, but at this time, I haven’t seen a clear alternative plan for fund distribution.”
Phillips felt the meeting with the congressman “went well.”
“We didn’t go in thinking we were going to change his mind about the value of the Department of Education,” she said. “My hope from the meeting is that we could communicate our disagreement with HB 899 and create a starting point for further dialogue. We don’t need to agree with one another on everything to work together. It was clear to me that we’re aligned on some important things, like wanting more direct support to our classrooms. I see this as an opportunity to open the door for future collaboration.”
I reached out to Cline’s office for comment on this story, which was one that, going in, was going to make him look good, because the topic is, him being willing to meet with constituents, which he doesn’t often do.
Predictably, we got no response.
It only counts as good press if it has Cline squawking on NewsMax or “The Joe Pags Show,” which, no, didn’t make that one up, is an actual radio show that Cline is a regular guest on.
Share
Chris Graham
